Quiz 7 Research Methods

Sheldon conducts a survey in which he asks college and university students from across the U.S. about their satisfaction with their education. He includes an open-ended question where he asks, "How does your educational institution provide meaning in your life?" He anticipates students will provide responses about exposure to the arts, the value of gaining knowledge, a sense of community with fellow learners, meeting people from backgrounds different from their own, etc. In order to analyze these data, Sheldon will need to use ______.

coding

Most survey research uses sample sizes that range from about_____ to about_______.

100, 1000

A rating scale is an ordered set of responses that participants must choose from. The number of response options can vary, but _____ are most common.

5-7

_____ asks a question and provide a set of response options for participants to choose from.

A Closed Question

According to Dr. Daniel Storage, what was wrong with Shere Hite's sampling in her survey about women's sexuality?

All answers are correct

"What is your opinion of climate change?" Such a survey question that does not offer prescribed response items is known as:

An open-ended question

The "B" in the acronym BRUSO stands for:

Brief

Introductory psychology students are often part of a "subject pool" and are asked to take part in research for class credit. When participants are recruited in a nonrandom way because the participants meet the general requirements of the study, what type of sampling is used?

Convenience Sampling

"Men should not flirt with women at bars, nor should they buy women flowers." What survey wording problem is represented in this statement?

Double-Barreled Question

According to the BRUSO model, survey questions should be subjective.

False

Data indicate that people who participate in internet surveys are more likely to have psychological issues (depression, social anxiety, etc.) and therefore are less likely to be representative of the general population than traditional samples.

False

Which psychologist originally named the survey, the "questionary"? This psychologist is also known as Mr. First, as he was the first American psychologist to receive a PhD in psychology. Additionally, he started the first psychology lab and started the first journal in the U.S.

G. Stranley Hall

_______ is a type of research design that takes measures for an extended period before and after an event that is expected to influence behavior.

Interrupted Time Series Design

A threat to internal validity when participants have changed between pretest and posttest in ways that are due to natural growth and learning. For example, college freshmen show a decline in their social anxiety from the start to the end of the school year, as they make friends and develop social skills.

Maturation

A researcher is interested in the effectiveness of an anti-drug education program on elementary school students' attitudes toward illegal drugs. The researcher implements the anti-drug program, and then immediately after the program ends, the researcher measures students' attitudes toward illegal drugs. What type of design was used?

One-Group Postest Only Design

A type of research design in which variables are manipulated, but random assignment is not possible:

Quasi-Experimental Design

Select the answer below that correctly describes this survey item: Professors teaching online classes should communicate regularly with their students. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Strongly Disagree

The response scale is faulty

Dr. Piranha is interested in how many people own exotic pets and what kind of exotic pets are the most common. He teaches in the Psychology Department at a large state school, and his department requires that all Introductory Psychology students complete 8 research credits for their course (or complete an alternative assignment if they do not wish to participate). Dr. Piranha administers his pet survey to the Intro Psych research pool. What kind of sampling is he using?

convenience

Strack et al. (1988) conducted a survey asking college student participants about general life satisfaction and their dating frequency. The researchers varied which of these they asked about first. They discovered that if life satisfaction was presented in the survey before dating frequency, the two variables were weakly correlated, but if dating frequency came before life satisfaction, the correlation between the two variables was +.66. Which of the following is the best conclusion to draw from these data?

There is an order-effect occurring within the survey which affects the results.

The "U" in the acronym BRUSO stands for:

Unambiguous

Surveys should have introductions, which provide ________.

all answers are correct

Although online surveys have becoming increasingly popular among researchers, data indicate that internet samples are less representative of the population than traditional samples collected with university students.

false

If asking questions about sensitive questions (such as drug use, potentially illegal activities, or sexual activities) put the most sensitive questions at the beginning of the survey to get them out of the way, in case the respondents get bored while taking the survey.

false

Increasing the sample size for a survey from 1000 to 2000 will dramatically decrease the 95% confidence interval, greatly increasing the researcher's confidence in their survey results.

false

Respondents are required to answer all questions on a survey.

false

Sampling bias occurs when a sample is selected in such a way that it is representative of the entire population and therefore produces accurate results.

false

Surveys generally allow researchers to draw conclusions about cause-effect relationships between variables.

false

The order in which survey items appear does not affect how participants respond to surveys.

false

What threat to internal validity occurs when something happens between the pretest and posttest that caused the change. For instance, a famous celebrity died of a drug overdose and many students in an anti-drug program heard about it.

history

In general, _____ interviews have the highest response rates, followed by telephone surveys, and then mail and Internet surveys.

in-person

Researchers are studying alcohol abuse using a breathalyzer that measures blood alcohol content. However, the breathalyzer becomes inaccurate after 6 months of use. What threat to internal validity occurs when the measuring instrument changes like this over time?

instrumentation

_____ refers to when the basic characteristics of the measuring instrument change over time.

instrumentation

Demographic items are often presented _____ because they are least interesting to participants but also easy to answer in the event respondents have become tired or bored.

last

A speech therapist has developed a new intervention for two-year-old children who are behind in language development. In order to determine if her intervention works she really needs a comparison (control) group in order to account for _______.

maturation

Ms. Henderson, a physical education teacher, wants to know if gym class helps improve the coordination of 1st graders. She tests the children on a variety of different physical tasks at the beginning of the school year, and then tests them again at the end of the school year and finds that they have better skills at the end than at the beginning. In this example, _________ is a confounding variable that prevents us from concluding that PE class improved the children's coordination.

maturation

Egan and Stelmack (2003) gave the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised to 39 climbers at the base camp of Mt. Everest. The researchers' analysis compared scores on personality traits (neurotocisim, extraversion, etc.) between those who made it all the way to the summit and those who didn't. The researchers discovered there were no significant differences between the groups. This study best fits with which of the following designs?

non-equivalent groups, posttest only

A _____ groups design is a between-subjects design in which participants have not been randomly assigned to conditions.

nonequivalent

Another way to improve upon the posttest only nonequivalent groups design is to add a_____.

pretest

A bowler with a long-term average of 150 who suddenly bowls a 220 will almost certainly score lower in the next game. Her score will "regress" toward her mean score of 150. This refers to:

regression to the mean

Mr. Leary implements a new program for low-achieving students. Fifth graders scoring in the bottom 10% of the class on a math test given on day 1 of the semester are required to stay inside during recess and work math problems with the teacher. After 4 weeks, the students are tested again, and Mr. Leary is delighted to discover that the students' scores have improved. Which of the following potential confounds poses an alternative explanation for the results of Leary's new program?

regression to the mean

A list of all of the members of a population from which a researcher will select participants for their survey is known as a _________.

sampling frame

________ is a potential confound for quasi-experiments that involve non-equivalent groups.

selection

Imagine Dr. Krieper works for AMC television (which airs The Walking Dead) and wants to survey viewers of the show to find out whether they like the direction the show is going. She posts a link to her online survey on a fan website for the show to recruit participants. People who choose to do so follow the link and take the survey. What kind of sampling is Krieper using?

self-selection

Dr. Empirical is interested in surveying sex workers to find out about their lifestyles. She strikes up a conversation with one sex worker who makes their contacts on the street, and they agree to be interviewed by Empirical. This worker then tells others about Dr. Empirical's study and passes along Empirical's contact information. Eventually, Empirical reaches a sample size of 21 for her survey due to participants referring other participants. What type of sampling is Empirical using?

snowball

_____ sampling is a type of sampling in which existing research participants help recruit additional participants for the study.

snowball

The tendency for a medical or psychological problem to improve over time without any form of treatment is known as:

spontaneous remission

A threat to the internal validity of one-group pretest-posttest designs is_____, which refers to when the act of measuring the dependent variable during the pretest affects participants' responses at posttest.

testing

A _____ is a set of measurements taken at intervals over a period of time.

time series

Ethically, there are limits to offering incentives that may be so large as to be considered coercive.

true

If a researcher is using stratified random sampling, they are randomly sampling from different subgroups within the larger population.

true

If a researcher who wishes to generalize their results to the entire population samples disproportionately from wealthy people, such that wealthier people are over-represented and middle-class and poorer people are under-represented, the results of the survey likely will not be accurate due to sampling bias.

true

Questions using negatives, and especially double-negatives, are often avoided in surveys because they are more difficult for people to cognitively process.

true

Regression towards the mean and testing could pose potential confounds if participants are tested more than once in the same study.

true

The interrupted time-series design with nonequivalent groups involves taking a set of measurements at intervals over a period of time both before and after an intervention of interest in two or more nonequivalent groups.

true